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I’ve got one more sketchbook review for you, friends, before this year comes to a close!
I picked up this sketchbook since I’ve been on a bit of a dry media / ink-and-wash kick lately and wanted to continue venturing out beyond familiar 100% cotton watercolor sketchbooks. Because I’d been so pleasantly surprised by the Arteza sketchbook I’d worked in last, I thought maybe there were other hidden gems out there waiting to be discovered.
This sketchbook came recommended by a few YouTubers as their favorite to work in so I decided I’d give it a try.
For reference I judge these kinds of sketchbooks on how well they handle various media, especially being capable of handling some watercolor.
The description on this sketchbook’s packaging says it is “natural white sketch paper with fine grain for defined pen control and delicate hatchings. Suitable for use with all dry-painting techniques in addition to wet colours.”
I’m not sure what “dry-painting” is, unless by that they mean colored pencil, pastel, etc?
The sketchbook contains 80 pages of 90-lb (190gsm) paper.
I put several media to use in this sketchbook including ink, watercolor, colored pencil, water-soluble ink, a truly failed attempt at gouache (not the paper’s fault, but mine, as a terrible gouache artist), water-soluble pastels, and watercolor colored pencils.
The book is hard-covered with dark-grey stiff canvas. It is very sturdy and handled being crammed into my purse on multiple occasions just fine. The back of the cover is embossed with their logo.
Size-wise, I feel this is a fairly “large” A6 at 4.1″x5.8″. It was certainly taller and a bit wider than my Arteza.
Unique in most sketchbooks in this vein, this particular sketchbook actually does not come with an elastic closure. While I feel like elastic closures are kind of pointless in ways because they eventually deteriorate over time, I found myself missing this feature while working in this sketchbook because it tended to fan open when I had the book closed while not in use. I found myself stacking heavy objects on top of the sketchbook to keep it closed.
You will also not find a back pocket popular with lots of sketchbook brands. I don’t feel back pockets are 100% necessary, however, I wanted a place to tuck some business cards so I took a small greeting card envelope and taped it in at the back of the sketchbook to provide myself with some storage.
The book appears to be case bound with stitch binding that allows it to open flat anywhere in the book. I found I had to do a bit of forceful pressing to get spreads to lie open all the way, but once they were open, they stayed that way. I do think the binding on this book feels really solid and like I won’t have issues with it someday falling apart.
As with lots of sketchbooks, this one included a ribbon bookmark. At one point, however, I felt like the tail of the bookmark kept flopping in the way so I eventually tucked the tail in the back of the book and secured with with a little washi tape while I worked through the book. You’ll see from the photo that the ribbon had a really hard crease in it that it just wouldn’t relax out of. I’d probably need to put it under an iron to get the crease out. I’m still on the fence as to whether bookmarks are necessary in sketchbooks.
The paper is smooth and a lovely white color. I wouldn’t say it’s bright white, but definitely much whiter than the paper in the Arteza sketchbook I reviewed previously. Because of its weight, it feels nice and sturdy, too.
The end pages in this sketchbook are the same paper as you find through the rest of the book, so that means you can start creating on the inside front cover of this book, if you desire. Since there wasn’t a built-in pocket on this sketchbook, I used the inside back cover to tape in the labeling for the sketchbook (I didn’t add the envelope until after).
The paper itself was kind of disappointing for me. I don’t think I’ll ever purchase another of these sketchbooks, unfortunately. The first thing I noticed is that it wasn’t great with multiple layers of wet media. Additional color over the top of existing color usually resulted in the lower layers of color starting to lift. It was pretty much impossible to achieve smooth gradients, for example. I’ll throw it a bone and say that it was nice that it at least tolerated wet media, even though it did a poor job of letting said media shine.
Another quirk I noticed with this paper is that my watercolors came out looking dull on it. They kind of greyed out, for lack of a better description. It was difficult to achieve much vibrance, as a result.
It did a pretty good job not buckling, however, under lots of water. That was a nice feature.
As for other mediums, I think it handled them all fairly well. For ink, I noticed it would sometimes feather on some of the pages.
For colored pencil or wax pastel, I noticed the paper’s texture would show up underneath.
For water-soluble media like my Caran d’Ache Neocolor II pastels and watercolor colored pencil, I ran into the issue again of either the texture of the paper showing through when I didn’t wet the media, and then the issue of the color lifting when I did wet it. It felt like a “damned if you do or damned if you don’t” kind of scenario with these.
As far as value for the money, these are priced pretty similarly to other sketchbooks at about the $15 range for the A6 size. (Price quoted as I currently write this review. Prices may change.)
Unfortunately, I find myself not wanting to recommend this sketchbook. At least not if you like to work in sketchbooks the way I do. I’d rather default to the Arteza sketchbook, even though it’s paper is off-white. I just find the quirks of this sketchbook to be too many.
After all this experience of working in various sketchbooks I’m starting to realize that probably my “perfect” travel sketchbook for all of my ink-and-wash approaches would actually be a 100% cotton hot press watercolor sketchbook. They’re a bit more expensive, yes, but I think they’re just superior in every way.
In conclusion, I think if you really want to get this sketchbook, I’d probably stick with ink and only watercolor washes where you’re not expecting lots of vibrant pops of color with smooth washes.
| Pros | Cons |
| Sturdy cover Heavyweight, smooth paper Hardcover Lay flat binding | Watercolors look dull Some ink feathering Doesn’t support multiple layers of wet media No elastic closure |
Have you used a Hahnemühle Nostalgie sketchbook? What are your thoughts?
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List of materials:
Contains affiliate links. See disclosure for more info.
Hahnemühle Nostalgie A6 sketchbook
Platinum Carbon Ink
Noodler’s Heart of Darkness Ink
QoR Watercolors
Prismacolor Colored Pencils
Caran d’Ache Neocolor II water soluble pastels
Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle watercolor colored pencils
TWSBI Eco Fountain Pen
Pilot Metropolitan Fountain Pen
Lamy Safari Fountain Pen
Odyssey Art 
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